Hollywood is a ruthless industry where a single box office bomb can permanently erase a franchise from existence. Studios invest hundreds of millions of dollars into intellectual properties with the expectation of immediate global dominance, and when a film fails to connect, the reaction is often swift and terminal. We have seen countless potential blockbusters like Mortal Engines or The Mortal Instruments attempt to launch massive cinematic universes, only to be quietly shelved the moment the opening weekend numbers disappoint. That happens because audience goodwill is a finite resource, and a bad first impression is usually the only opportunity a character gets before fading into obscurity.
However, there exists a rare tier of pop culture icons who possess an immunity to critical failure that defies all industry logic. These characters are so deeply embedded in the collective consciousness that they can weather a storm of terrible scripts, bizarre casting choices, and embarrassing visual effects that would destroy lesser heroes. They survive because they represent modern myths that are larger than any single director’s vision, allowing them to constantly reinvent themselves for new generations. For some characters, no matter how many times they are mishandled or placed in universally despised productions, audiences remain desperate to see them done right.
7) James Bond
While 007 is a solid franchise, James Bond has struggled multiple times with a bad movie. More famously, Die Another Day stands as a monument to excess, featuring an invisible Aston Martin, a villain with diamonds embedded in his face, and a CGI parasurfing sequence that looks like a PlayStation 2 cutscene. The film misunderstood the appeal of the spy genre so fundamentally that it forced the producers to burn the entire continuity to the ground and start over. Even the posterior Daniel Craig era, which is largely celebrated, suffered a significant stumble with Quantum of Solace, a movie crippled by a writer’s strike and an incomprehensible plot.
Despite these misfires, the tuxedo-clad spy remains the gold standard of action cinema. The character’s ability to regenerate was proven when Casino Royale stripped away the gadgets to reveal the human being beneath the code number. Now, the future of the franchise looks brighter than ever. With Denis Villeneuve officially attached to direct the next installment and rumors swirling around Callum Turner as the next heir to the Walther PPK, the brand has successfully shed the baggage of its past failures.
6) Frankenstein’s Monster
Mary Shelley’s tragic creation has suffered more indignities than perhaps any other literary figure. While the Universal classics are masterpieces, the modern era has treated the creature with baffling disrespect. For instance, I, Frankenstein attempted to turn the stitched-together corpse into an action hero fighting gargoyles in a CGI-heavy war that bored audiences to tears. Similarly, Van Helsing reduced the character to a whiny plot device, while Victor Frankenstein focused so heavily on the manic energy of its leads that it forgot to make the monster scary or sympathetic. These films stripped away the philosophical weight of the source material in favor of hollow spectacle.
Fortunately, the Monster is currently enjoying a massive resurgence thanks to a filmmaker who understands the gothic romance at the heart of the story. Guillermo del Toro finally released his passion project, Frankenstein, on Netflix, delivering a visually stunning adaptation that honors the tragedy of the novel. With Jacob Elordi as The Monster and Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein delivering career-best performances, the film has washed away the taste of the action-horror hybrids of the 2010s, reminding audiences that this character is a complex reflection of humanity’s hubris.
5) King Arthur
The legend of Camelot should be the ultimate cinematic slam dunk, yet Hollywood consistently struggles to pull the sword from the stone. The most egregious failure was Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, which tried to turn the mythical king into a street-smart gangster in a fantasy London. The film was a chaotic mess of montage editing and giant elephants that lost the studio roughly $150 million. Before that, 2004’s King Arthur stripped away the magic in favor of a muddy historical take that managed to make dragons and wizards boring. These adaptations failed because they were embarrassed by the earnest heroism that makes the story work.
Despite these colossal bombs, the Once and Future King refuses to stay dead. The Arthurian mythos is the bedrock of Western fantasy, and creators continue to find new angles to explore. The legend survives because it is public domain and endlessly malleable, allowing it to outlive any single director’s disastrous attempt to make it “edgy.”
4) Robin Hood
The Prince of Thieves has been the victim of some of the most baffling creative decisions in blockbuster history. The 2018 film Robin Hood is widely regarded as one of the worst misfires of the decade, featuring Taron Egerton in a version that inexplicably dressed the cast in modern tactical gear and treated the Crusades like a contemporary war in the Middle East. It was a cynical attempt to launch a franchise that nobody wanted, resulting in a box office catastrophe. Even the 2010 version starring Russell Crowe was criticized for being a dreary, humorless slog that sucked the joy out of the swashbuckling adventure.
Yet, you cannot kill a legend that has been told for 600 years. The archery contest, the robbery of the rich, and the defiance of tyranny are narrative beats that never get old. The character is currently poised for a gritty comeback with The Death of Robin Hood, with Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer in the lead roles. By shifting the focus to an older, broken outlaw facing his mortality, this new project will try to mine dramatic gold from Sherwood Forest, hopefully faring better than its predecessors.
3) Dracula
Count Dracula is the most adapted literary character in history, which statistically guarantees a high volume of garbage. Still, the lowest point of the vampire’s screen career was likely Dracula 2000, a film that tried to update the myth for the MTV generation and ended with the baffling reveal that Dracula was actually Judas Iscariot. More recently, Universal failed to launch their Dark Universe with Dracula Untold, a generic origin story that turned the Lord of Vampires into a misunderstood superhero with a swarm of bats. Even the 2023 film The Last Voyage of the Demeter failed to find an audience despite a solid premise, proving how difficult it is to make the Count scary again.
However, the Count always rises from the grave. The character is currently experiencing a renaissance, with Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu terrifying audiences and Luc Besson’s lavish romantic epic Dracula: A Love Tale arriving in US theaters soon. Dracula remains the ultimate metaphor for addiction and desire, a villain that cinema simply cannot quit. Plus, the fact that Bram Stoker’s book is public domain incentivizes studios to keep trying to profit from it.
2) Freddy Krueger
For a character who thrives on fear, Freddy Krueger has been trapped in a nightmare of bad management for decades. The 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is almost universally loathed by the horror community. By replacing the charismatic Robert Englund with a dour Jackie Earle Haley and removing the dark humor that defined the series, the film produced a boring slasher that lacked a soul. Before that, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare turned the Springwood Slasher into a live-action cartoon, complete with a Power Glove product placement and 3D gimmicks that mocked the terror of the original films.
Although we have not had a good movie in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise since the 1990s, Freddy remains the face of horror merchandise. You can walk into any store in October and see his burnt visage on t-shirts, merchandising, and costume kits. The concept of a killer who hunts you in your dreams is too good to be destroyed by a lackluster remake. While rights issues have stalled a new theatrical outing, the character’s legacy is kept alive by a fanbase that refuses to let the dream die, proving that a great villain is more powerful than a bad script.
1) Jason Voorhees
No character has survived more cinematic atrocities than the killer of Crystal Lake. Jason Voorhees has starred in movies that are objectively terrible by every metric of filmmaking, yet his popularity only seems to grow. Jason Takes Manhattan promised a city rampage but delivered 90 minutes of a boat ride. Jason Goes to Hell decided to get rid of the hockey mask entirely in favor of a body-hopping worm demon. And Jason X sent the slasher to space to fight androids, a premise so ridiculous it defies parody. These films are critical disasters, but they have charmed gore-hounds for generations.
The endurance of Jason Voorhees is a testament to the power of effective iconography. The hockey mask is synonymous with the genre itself, transcending the quality of the movies it appears in. Even after a lengthy legal battle froze the franchise, the hunger for new content never waned. With the prequel series Crystal Lake recently wrapping production for Peacock, fans are finally getting a prestige look at the Voorhees bloodline. With Linda Cardellini (Pamela Voorhees) leading the cast, the show proves that you can drop a building on Jason, blow him up, or send him to hell, but he will always come back for one more scare.
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